HOMECOMING KINGS

It was always someone else's celebration, either Michael Jordan and the Bulls' or Mike Ditka and the Bears'. South Siders had enjoyed all those moments as Chicagoans, but those didn't touch them, deep in their core, like celebrating a World Series title for the team that plays at 35th and Shields.

That pride is what brought them to Midway Airport on Thursday to greet the team's plane. They will be there again Friday when a motorcade begins at U.S. Cellular Field and winds its way through South Side neighborhoods, ending with a ticker-tape parade up LaSalle Street. And they were there in the wee hours of Thursday morning on the field and in the stands at Houston's Minute Maid Park after their team's 1-0 victory in Game 4 that completed an incomprehensible sweep.

Fans lingered for hours after the final out that ended the futility so intertwined with their identity. Loud and proud, many arm in arm, Sox faithful spontaneously broke into song.

"Na na na na, na na na na, hey, hey, hey, goooodbyeeeeee," they sang over and over. The partying lasted so long that one ballpark worker waiting to clean up shouted from the corridor, "Go home already, people."

Nobody wanted to leave. Nobody really knew how to act, what to do, where to go. They were in a place they had never been, and nothing about it seemed familiar.

Now that the good guys and gals wearing black have returned to their homes, wonderfully weary, a seismic change on the Chicago baseball landscape guarantees that a different world awaits them.

Breathe, Sox fans. An 88-year wait has ended. The Cubs are now on the clock, and their fans on the spot.

There will be nothing more to worry about for South Siders who have made worrying as involuntary as blinking. "Only 119 days till pitchers and catchers report" no longer sounds like a warning, and compliments might start to outnumber complaints on sports-talk radio.

The victory champagne will erode the chips on their shoulders, and they no longer will feel like the neglected little sibling in town.

Or will they?

"Being fans of the No. 1 team in town will be an uncomfortable role for Sox fans," said Richard Lindberg, a White Sox historian who has written four books on the franchise. "They actually could lord it over Cubs fans and create more acrimony between both sides of town than you have right now."

Lindberg was walking proudly down the walkway at U.S. Cellular Field late last Sunday night after Scott Podsednik made history with his walk-off home run to beat the Astros in Game 2, the happiest moment ever in the building. About 200 fans interrupted the perfect setting for Lindberg by chanting, "Cubs still [stink]!" all the way out of the stadium.

"Here we were, celebrating a win in the second game of the World Series--the World Series--and they're worried about the Cubs," Lindberg said. "I just thought to myself, I don't think that culture is ever going to change."

In Boston, it did. After the Red Sox ended 86 years of misery with a World Series title last season, Fenway Park regulars noted a kinder, gentler brand of fan attending games. Earlier this season, lifelong Red Sox fan Bill Chuck, who runs the baseball Web site Billy-Ball.com, called the difference "palpable."

"What used to be a start-of-the-season-to-end-of-the-season anxiety attack is no longer," Chuck said.

Asked if he expected the edge of Sox fans to soften a little with a World Series title, Sox general manager Ken Williams smirked.

"I think it won't be as sharp--at least through Opening Day of next year," Williams said. "After that, all bets are off. I'm guessing. Because once you get a taste of it, don't you want to be back? I do. I want to experience this again and all that does is create greater expectations from the fan base and the media to do that. We can deal with that, believe me."

Lifelong fan Mark Liptak, a native South Sider and freelance writer now living in Chubbuck, Idaho, believes Williams just bought himself job security free of the scrutiny that has always come with the GM's parking spot.

"There's a grace period of three, five or eight years," said Liptak, 50. "You give me a World Series championship and I don't care if they finish last for the next 10 years. It's like the Promised Land has been reached. The stigma is gone. We're happy."

But to expect a gentler Sox fan to show up next season might be a mistake, warned Dr. Charlie Maher, a sports psychologist at Rutgers University who worked with the White Sox from 1989 to '95.

"For the core Sox fan, the edginess might even increase because their self-esteem will be higher and they might even be a little cockier, which could create more friction with the Cubs," said Maher, who now works with the Indians. "The working-class mentality makes them raise the expectations. It could be an even more demanding environment."

Whether the stress level on the South Side subsides or increases with a world title might depend on the age of the Sox fan asked. But many men and women raised to feel like second-class baseball citizens in Chicago relish the chance to prove they can change too.

Under a column titled "88 Years and Waiting," on the Web site www.whitesoxinteractive.com, George Bova wrote before Game 4, "Nothing would make me happier than to shed this silly column title and give it a name fitting what generations of Sox Fans, both dead and alive, ever only wanted: To be a winner."

That type of longing always has been part of a Sox fan's essence. Taking it away from many people who have pined most of their lives to see a World Series champion on the South Side is almost too much to comprehend for some. The climb comforts them more than the view from the top. They are the gritty type of people who would win the lottery on Friday and go to work on Monday.

Even Williams, as cocky as they come, sounded skittish as he preached prudence and caution up until Bobby Jenks recorded the final out Wednesday night. He did not bring a change of clothes for the champagne celebration for fear of jinxing himself, a wardrobe decision that spoke to the core of every Sox fan.

"We haven't done anything yet to celebrate," he said while sitting in the dugout before Game 4 with a 3-0 series lead.

He was repeating the words echoing inside the heads of Sox fans who remained edgy because they have never lived any other way. Cautiously optimistic is a way of life for them.

"As long as Sox fans are in the minority, they will continue to act as the minority and have this hostility," Lindberg said. "Will that change? Good question."

Even on the brink of drinking bubbly, Lindberg represented the prototypical Sox fan mentality in criticizing local and national coverage of the American League champions.

With both major newspapers in the city devoting intensive coverage to the postseason run, Lindberg lamented that Sox fans were left with not much of a choice between the Tribune, perceived as being pro-Cub, and the Sun-Times, whose columnist Jay Mariotti is considered Sox Enemy No. 1.

"Winning may and will go a long way toward establishing parity and some positive coverage," he said.

In assessing the national tone of the coverage of the playoffs on FOX and ESPN, Lindberg said he spoke for many when he wondered why the networks went out of their way to emphasize the number of questionable calls by umpires.

"That's the type of coverage that gives Sox fans the chips on their shoulders," he said.

His own burden lightened with the team's first AL pennant since 1959. Beating the Houston Astros in the World Series was not essential for Lindberg, or maybe after a lifetime rooting for the Sox he could not get his arms around the idea of his team fulfilling every imaginable goal.

"Getting to the World Series was the monkey off the back for me," he said. "I've heard people say it [would not] mean a lot unless you win. I think it means a heck of a lot. It's the first one in 46 years and we got there before Kerry Wood and Mark Prior did."

Beating the Cubs to the Series was enough in some corners of Sox Nation. In the darkest of those corners, winning it all only created another complication.

"Maybe the biggest fear for Sox fans is that winning a World Series would jump-start the Cubs to open up the checkbook," Lindberg said. "There's always something to worry about."